


The Post-Canon Drabbles

by crossingwinter



Series: Irresponsible Storytelling [5]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Alternate Universe - Post-Canon, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-03-18
Updated: 2017-08-13
Packaged: 2018-01-16 03:55:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 28
Words: 10,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1330990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crossingwinter/pseuds/crossingwinter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chapter titles contain relevant characters and/or pairings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Shireen

**Author's Note:**

  * For [canyouseemyspark](https://archiveofourown.org/users/canyouseemyspark/gifts), [PrioritiesSorted](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PrioritiesSorted/gifts), [theoldgods (missandei)](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=theoldgods+%28missandei%29).



She likes to run her fingers across the blades. Not up and down, where they’d slice her skin. Across, as if testing the sharpness of them. They aren’t that sharp anymore. Years have worn away most of their edges, cutting Kings unworthy of the seat.

The thought makes her smile.

She’s no King, and she’s not unworthy.

She is the Queen, the Rightful, Lawful, True Queen of the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros, the only true-born Baratheon left to claim the seat that had come to their hands through conquest and blood, and the only claimant to survive the Long Winter.

They’ve called her the Wolf Queen—because of her husband’s banner. They’ve called her the Iron Queen, backed as she was by the Iron Bank and all of Braavos. They’ve called her the Stone Queen, though whether for Dragonstone or for the mottled flesh of her face she does not know.

But they’ve always called her Queen. No qualification, no Lady, no Usurper.

Another thought to make her smile.


	2. Tommen

She’s still taller than he is, still pale skinned, still red of hair, but she’s different now. Now she smiles as she walks through Winterfell; her eyes light up when she takes her sister’s arm and they speak quietly; now her movements, though still graceful, have purpose when she guides her younger brother through the motions of greeting his King. How odd to see her like this, how odd to see her without red circles under her eyes, how odd to see color in her cheeks—even if it is only whipped into place by the Northern wind. 

He wants to run to her. More than once, in truth. He remembers clinging to her hand when he was afraid and the world was falling apart and how she had soothed him and kissed his cheek and wiped tears from his eyes. He remembered her face, so beautiful and, he realized now, so haunted, but he couldn’t see that when he was young: he saw the one who was to become his sister, beautiful and gentle and kind and oh, how he’d wished that Joffrey would be more like her once they were married.

"Is aught amiss, my love?" Margaery has come up behind him and rested her hand on his elbow. He turns his head halfway to look at her. There are the beginnings of lines around her lips and the corners of her eyes, and there is a stiffness to her gait now. There has been a stiffness there for a while, ever since he’d removed the handship from her father.

He bites his lip, shakes his head, and says nothing.


	3. Aegon VI x Rhaenys

She sees the way he looks at the little Stark girl—not the older one, the pretty one. The young one, dark hair and long face and grey eyes. 

She doesn’t like it. Bad enough that her father shamed her mother with a Stark. Her mother had never forgiven him for it, had died hating him for that shame. But her mother had been sickly, and her anger was the languid, lazy anger of the ill. Rhaenys’ was not. Rhaenys’ was a hot anger, hotter than the Dornish sun, fire that ran through her blood as she took her brother’s hand.

He glanced at her sideways, his deep eyes curious, as if he didn’t know that she had seen him watching. ”They ride well, do they not, My Lady?” he asked lightly, gesturing at Ser Loras Tyrell and Ser Robar Royce.

"Yes—well enough," she replied. "Would that you were riding for my honor."

"But then I could not sit with you," he teased. Oh, how he could tease. As if teasing would distract her. "Then I would be far from your side, Sweet Sister."

She bit back a retort when Ser Loras popped Ser Robar from his saddle and the crowd cheered. Aegon faced forward once again and applauded, but she saw his eyes drop down to the Stark girl again, and her blood boiled.

She grabbed his chin and pulled him to her and kissed him firmly, biting his lip lightly as he made a noise of surprise. When he tried to pull away she held him there and spoke into his lips, “I see you watching her. Do not shame me brother. You will regret it.”

Aegon’s brows were slightly raised as she let his chin go. But she turned away from him, now, letting her eyes settle on Sandor Clegane as he mounted his black horse, her heart hammering in her throat.


	4. Myrcella x Robb

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for [shewolfhowling](shewolfhowling.tumblr.com).

He shouldn’t be there—not at all. It was unseemly, wasn’t it? And what could he possibly want, kissing her there? Myrcella’s head was light as she tilted her head back against the door. How she’d ended up in his bedchamber to begin with was more than she could remember right now, and it didn’t matter at all, not one bit, because he had hiked up her skirts and pushed aside her smallclothes and was kneeling between her legs—he’d even lifted one of them over his shoulder so he could press his face to her as he licked up and down, back and forth, tongue sliding in and out and circling the little nub that throbbed when she saw him lifting his shirt to wipe sweat from his face when he was sparring in the yards and she could catch a glimpse of the chords ridges of muscles on his stomach, the red hair that trailed from his chest to his belly to somewhere below the lines of his breeches and oh, how it was throbbing now as his tongue…she couldn’t even think of words to describe what he was doing, he was, he—that was—oh…


	5. Stannis & Sansa

"Winterfell is your brother’s, My Lady," he said.  He wasn’t looking at her.  He was staring at the flames.  Sansa wondered if he saw Bran there, the way his Priestess claimed to have.  "And until such a time as he returns to claim his seat, or your youngest brother comes of age, it shall be yours." He sounds like he takes no pleasure in the words.

"Your Grace," she murmurs and sinks into a curtsey he cannot see.  

"You aren’t guilty of the crimes of your brother," he continues as though he hadn’t heard her.  "Nor are your brothers guilty.  You’ve bent your knees, Winterfell is mine.  And I reward those who do their duty to their King."

Sansa felt her lip trembling, her throat closing.  Winterfell was  _hers_ , Winterfell wouldn’t be taken from them, she was  _home_ , and Rickon was downstairs playing with Shaggydog and Arya was in the Godswood, staring at the Heart Tree as though expecting Bran’s words to come pouring out of its wooden lips.  She was home—they were all home, and home wouldn’t be taken from them.

"Thank you, Your Grace," she repeated.  She crosse the room and, knowing it was forward, knowing it was unladylike, knowing that it was inappropriate, stood on the tips of her toes to kiss him.  She didn’t reach his cheek, so she pressed her lips to his jaw instead.  "I will never forget your justice," she whispered.   _Justice—this was justice, not a quick death for a false crime._

She left the room, hardly daring to smile, hardly daring to believe, and she didn’t see the King turn at last to stare at her a hand rising disbelievingly to his jaw.

 


	6. Sansa x Willas

She hates that this is home—hates it—hates that Winterfell was burned and rebuilt and, even if it had been rebuilt stone for stone—which it wasn’t, she wouldn’t have remembered it quite so well as she remembered the Red Keep, in all its rusty horror.

Queen Daenerys is no fool, and knows she sits on a throne that will turn on her quickly.  She was no fool when she sent for hostages from each of the High Houses.  Even Sansa has to respect that, for all she hates knowing that Arya, Rickon and Bran are all at Winterfell, all with one another, basking in the springtime sunlight, swimming in the hot springs in the Godswood, playing with their wolves.

Sansa doesn’t even have the Godswood in the Red Keep to herself.  She comes every day to pray, to contemplate, to read, to flee the twittering of the Queen’s ladies, her Dornish handmaids who hate Sansa twice over for her aunt’s slight to Elia Martell and her brother’s resistance to the Queen’s claim.  But, every day, in the mid-afternoon,  _he_  comes.

The limp itself is a slight one, though she can see that it is because he hardly puts pressure on the lame leg before he switches to he good, and he leans heavily on a walking stick carved with roses painted gold.  At first, she thinks the stick is ridiculous—far too much.  Why do Tyrells always insist on putting roses on everything?  And then she realizes that the paint on the roses is chipping and the stick is battered, well used—one he has owned for many years, one that has helped him up when he’s fallen, that he’s used to push furniture out of the way.  He always nods to her when he sees her, a deep nod, to invite the thought of a bow, before he finds a bench in the corner, next to the purple lavender and thyme, and reads.

Most afternoons, they spend in each other’s quiet company, him reading, her praying, or pretending to pray so that he will not speak to her.  What could he possibly wish to speak to her for?  She won’t give him Winterfell anymore, and perhaps he thinks she should have died in place of Margaery when the Queen took the heads of the Usurpers.

The Queen had called Robb a Usurper, though she had not punished Sansa for his crimes.  She was not Joffrey, at least, not cruel.  She was fair—Sansa has to admit that she was fair.  And yet she is so very alone now—just as alone as in Joffrey’s court, for while perhaps she is not so loathed, she was is not so trustful.

"What do you pray for, My Lady?" he asks one day.  His voice is mild, quiet, and carries over the spring sea breeze.

"Bran," she says, keeping her eyes focused on the white stump in front of her"Rickon, Arya, health, peace."

"Do your Gods hear you?" 

"No," she replies haltingly.  "No, they can’t.  Not here."

"Then why do you pray to them?"

She stares at him.  His book is closed now, and he is leaning forward, an elbow resting on the good leg.  He has the same sort of brown eyes that Margaery had had.  Sansa had never notice before.

She doesn’t reply, only stares at him.  He seems, at least, to realize that he’s been rude.

"Forgive me, My Lady," he glances down at the ground, "It was an impertinent question."

"Do you not pray to your Gods, Lord Willas?" she asks.  "Even if they might not hear you?"

"They don’t hear me," he says, and there is a darkness to his voice, "They didn’t hear me when I begged them to spare Margaery and Loras.  And if they don’t hear me, why pray?"

"I am truly sorry for your loss, My Lord," she whispers.  "Your sister was a kind woman, a good Queen.  And your brother was valiant."

He looks up, and there are those eyes again, steady and brown and suddenly sad, “I was sorry for your loss, as well, My Lady.  The news of what happened to your brother—no one should have to—”

"My brother was a traitor."  She hates the lie, the old lie, the lie she thought she’d never have to parrot again when Joffrey died, but how the Queen hates what Robb had done, too.   _My brother was my hope_.

"Of course he was."  There is too much understanding in Lord Willas’ voice and it is Sansa’s turn to look down.  They are quiet for a moment, and she hopes he will go back to his book and she will go back to forgetting how Robb died.  But instead, he speaks.  "This is a beautiful place," he sighs.  "And the flowers that bloom here are lovely and wild," he reaches out and rubs a lavender sprig between his fingers.

"I never notice them," Sansa murmurs.

"Growing up in Highgarden, it’s all you ever notice," Willas snorts.  "Roses and lilies and carnations and tulips.  There’s something so lovely about herb flowers though.  Small and pristine and fragrant."  He plucks the lavender and brings it to his nose.

Sansa stands and crosses to the bench, sitting next to him.  He holds the sprig to her nose.  It smells clean, and fresh and she can’t help but smile.

"You should pay attention to flowers more, My Lady.  That smile does you good."  He is smiling too, now, and what full lips he has, flush and pink and she’d never noticed before, and oh, how she wants to kiss him, but she shouldn’t, should she?  What would it matter if she did—so she does, and they feel like petals against her own lips.

"Perhaps I shall, My Lord.  Perhaps I shall."

 


	7. Margaery

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for [roseswillcutyou](roseswillcutyou.tumblr.com).

Had it been worth it, then? Renly dead, Joffrey dead, Tommen dead, Loras, Garlan, Willas dead, dragonflame in the Reach and Highgarden reduced to ashes. Had it been worth it watching the rose gardens burn, hearing the shrieks of stableboys and kitchenmaids and her brothers as they tried to flee the flame.

The Dragon Queen did not even sit the throne—no one sat the throne. No throne remained, her Drogon had melted it to a flat black disk before she had taken wing again. But she had unleashed her flames upon home, had crushed her enemies—perhaps not so thoroughly as Tywin Lannister, but had crushed them all the same.

And she had been one of those enemies, she—though she would have set her crown aside to spare her brothers. She was a usurper, a pretender, a rival, and other words as well that she’d had slung at her from the mouth of the Imp that Grandmother had framed for Joffrey’s death. How she hated him, how she hated his Queen, how she hated Stannis far away on the Wall, grinding his teeth and celebrating her downfall. But none of them did she hate half so much as she hated herself.


	8. Jeyne Poole

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for [inkasrain](inkasrain.tumblr.com).

“Jeyne, Jeyne, it rhymes with slain.”

He had almost laughed the words before they’d taken his head, and no one seemed to know what they meant. Not until Arya—the real Arya—came home. She was so obviously the real Arya that King Stannis didn’t doubt it for a moment. She arrived, a huge hulking direwolf at her side and (to hear the King whisper—which Jeyne did) the face of Lyanna Stark.

“Jeyne, Jeyne, it rhymes with feign.”

She heard his voice in her sleep sometimes, when hunger ached at her stomach and cold ached at her fingers and everything was dark. She’d never been so hungry—never, not even in King’s Landing. They’d starved some of the other girls there—fat girls (like Lord Bolton’s Lady wife) who couldn’t be pleasing to anyone. But Jeyne had always been slender so they’d let her eat. She wasn’t slender now though. She could see her bones moving beneath her skin and wondered if there would come a time when they would just pop through. The thought made her smile wryly. It wouldn’t be the worst thing that had happened to her, in truth.

“Jeyne, Jeyne, it rhymes with gain.”

It is Sansa who changes everything. 

No one had been cruel to her—not since Ramsay. Arya—the real Arya—hadn’t let them. Sansa, whose blue eyes went dull every now and then and who pursed her lips and looked away when something reminded her of the Vale. Sansa took her hand and brought her into her bed and they slept together, curled around one another, tracing fingers over each others scars and whispering horrors in the dark. But the darkness wasn’t so dark when Sansa was there.

“Jeyne, Jeyne, it rhymes with reign.”

She’d never expected to see Sansa sitting in her father’s great chair, back as straight as if Septa Mordane had tied a rod to her spine again. She sat evenly, looking down upon those who approached her with a warm distance that set people at ease, all while making them nervous. “I have a gift for you, Jeyne,” Sansa said, one evening—said quietly, the way she did when it was just the two of them. She nodded at someone behind Jeyne, and Jeyne turned in time to see the singer open his mouth, uttering words she’d never thought to hear again,

“Jeyne, Jeyne, it rhymes with pain.”


	9. Gendry

She’s different than she was before. It’s not just that she’s taller, or that she’s older and looks like a woman and less like an underfed street urchin. There’s a deadness to her eyes, a quiet despair he’d never imagined from her. He doesn’t know what it is, doesn’t know why it is, and knows that she’d never tell him. When she thinks no one is looking, she stares out into nothing and her face stills and her eyes go blank and it reminds him vividly of everyone in that shack in the Riverlands, where they’d heard screams and “Is there gold in the village? Where is Beric Dondarrion?” 

She’s not the only one with that look in her eyes. Her sister has it too, and her brothers. And he wonders if he hates them for it, that they have ghosts in their past that haunt them. Gendry doesn’t have ghosts to haunt him, no mother with a horrific death, or father murdered under guise of justice, or brother betrayed. He just has the starvation, the fear that you won’t be able to protect the rest, the knowledge that your life ultimately doesn’t matter to anyone at all, and, the worst, the creeping horror that you were, perhaps, worth more as a blacksmith.

But no—that’s not true. Because sometimes, Arya shakes herself when she sees him, the blankness fades and she smiles.


	10. Bran

Winterfell rises again, stone by stone, the laughter of Starks rising through the halls; as the snow melts, he divides up food rations, sends men to the fields; as the days slowly grow longer, it is the Broken Wolf who sits in the castle, letting the breeze reach him through doors thrown open, carrying the sounds of life.

At night, the winds are cold though, and the trees rock back and forth, branches waving and more than one of the kitchen workers thinks that they can hear the cries of ravens, the words of a wizard calling the earth to waken. Haunted, they say. Winterfell is haunted, and the ghost of King Robb fights to protect them from the dark. And in the morning, when Bran is carried back to the main hall, people look away, ignoring the dark circles under his eyes and the way that he seems to know everything.


	11. Sansa

_ _

_I am stronger within the walls of Winterfell._ She had once told herself that, when snow had swirled through the Eyrie and she’d thought herself safe—or nearly so.

And now—here she stood amid scorched and fallen stone.  They had cleared away most of the ashes from when Snow had burned it, and most of the Castle was still functional.

 _Moat Cailin is functional_ , Sansa thought,  _but it is no place to live._ _So it must be rebuilt.  I must rebuild it._

And a wild joy filled her, the likes of which she’d never felt before.  She was stronger within the walls of Winterfell, and Winterfell would be stronger with her within its walls.  


	12. Bran x Meera

It takes Meera eight years and nine days to realize that she is in love with Bran. (Bran can tell. Bran can see it in the way she carries herself, the way she leans in when he speaks, the way her eyes seem to dance when she replies.)

It should feel like a victory of some sort—that his patience won out in the end, that their past was all moving towards this, that she has a new smile—one that is just for him. But it doesn’t—not really. 

If anything it keeps him up at night—far more than the thought of her had before, when he’d just been some broken boy in love. It makes him nervous and he feels his heart beating faster, and it makes him toss and turn, or push himself away, diving into Summer’s skin and running for hours beneath the moonlight because running for hours beneath the moonlight is easier than this. 

It’s easier, he realizes, to love from afar. It’s easier to have some sort of tragic loneliness, some starstruck idealization like the songs Sansa had once loved so much. It’s easier to mope and sigh and pray that one day, she’ll notice how much she means to him than to sit there and watch as her eyes glow at him, as she takes his hand and whispers words gently in his ear and knowing that she’d have done it before, but she does it differently now. What can he say to her? What does she mean to him? What does he mean to her? What are they? What can they be?

The words catch in his throat when he looks at her, and he feels even more like a lost little boy than he ever did while winter was at its worst because there is something terrifying about the fact that there is nothing stopping him, nothing stopping them, but himself.


	13. Bran & The Liddles

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because my King won't be appearing in Season 5, I had a [Bran Night](http://celiatully.tumblr.com/tagged/bran-night/chrono) on my blog. This was the main fic result of that.

> _When they woke the next morning, the fire had gone out and the Liddle was gone, but he’d left a sausage for them, and a dozen oatcakes folded up neatly in a green and white cloth.  Some of the cakes had pinenuts baked in them and some had blackberries.  Bran ate one of each, and still did not know which sort he liked best.  One day there would be Starks in Winterfell again, he told himself, and then he’d send for the Liddles and pay them back a hundredfold for every nut and berry._

Winter hit the mountain clans the hardest, Bran thinks as he sees the them approach.  They are ragged, and thin, like far too many of the northmen.  Winter takes what it likes, especially when the last harvest was not near so plentiful as many would have liked.  But spring is coming now, the nights are less long, and the chill less biting and when the Liddle approaches, Bran sits up a little straighter in his father’s seat and smiles down at him.  

"Once, one of your men gave me food, and shelter.  It is past time I returned the favor."  The words feel formal in his mouth, and he rather imagines that his father might have said them once.  His voice doesn’t sound like father’s.  It’s not quite so deep, though sometimes it cracks in the middle of words which makes him blush.  He is glad that it does not crack now, for the Liddle’s eyes have softened slightly.  Bran raises a hand, and the doors from the kitchen open and Tom and Bryan and Willow all come in with huge baskets of oat cakes, baked with pinenuts and blackberries from the glass gardens.  


	14. Shireen x Edric

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for [spottswood](http://spottswood.tumblr.com).

It wouldn’t be the first time in history that this had happened, for a woman to marry a cousin of her blood in order to keep her name. He shall be her king, her consort, her dearest friend, her husband, and when he stands and takes the name Edric Baratheon, the hall is still and Shireen cannot even hear the whisperings of onlookers. 

She weds him that day, in the remnants of the sept in the remnants of the Red Keep. Theirs is a modest celebration—the lands are hungry and winter is not yet over, though she knows it will be, soon. The days are growing longer, longer as they were in her youth, after she had become a princess but before she had become a queen, when she and Edric had played together on Dragonstone.

And they play together again now, though the game is different. Where before they had chased one another, and teased and tackled and wrestled, now they touch, they caress, they rock and roll. They laugh and sigh as one, heat building between them as she kisses him, as he kisses her, as she draws him inside her and it is right, so very right.

He kisses her along her scars while he’s inside her. He kisses her and tells her that she is beautiful, that she is perfect, that there is no one he could ever love as much as he loves her. The words send butterflies to her stomach and she clings to him even more tightly as waves of pleasure wash over her, breaking and crashing as the waves do on Dragonstone.


	15. Brienne the Oathkeeper

She thinks that it is Ser Devan who started it.  He’d seen Ser Duncan’s name in the in the White Book and turned to her, excitedly, “My Lady—It’s your shield!  They should call you Brienne the Tall!  It wouldn’t be unfitting.”   In their cups, it was what they called her now.  It would do, she supposed, and she vastly preferred it to Brienne the Beauty.

She had not thought to serve Queen Shireen.  She had not thought to serve the daughter of the man who had slain Renly through black magic, even if she was to wed her baseborn cousin who had been raised by the Lord of Storm’s End.  She would sooner serve King Bran, for Lady Catelyn had always been good to her, and he had Lady Catelyn’s eyes.  Not the hate-filled ones of her revenant, the kind ones, the knowing ones who had bade that she  _live_ , for she could do nothing to save Renly.  But the Storm Doe (as she was called) was not her father—nor was she her mother.  Her skin was mottled and she carried herself in a way that was…familiar.

It wasn’t like Renly. Truly it was not.  Renly had been eager confidence and bright laughter. Shireen was something else altogether. She was quiet, contained, and the only time she smiled was when her cousin, or Ser Devan said something to make her laugh.  She was not used to being stared at and she wore her hair to cover the scars that spread across her cheek and neck.

 _She’s not used to being heeded.  Not used to being noticed_ , Brienne had realized slowly when the girl continued to look startled that men would take the knee in her presence.  _Men will never call her fair, nor does she expect them to.  If they dare, she’ll wonder if they mean it_.  

There was a gentleness to her, Brienne observed, though she hid it well.  Her father’s men were used to harsh order, and she gave it to them, but she wore that order as one might wear a gown, and when she was not in council with them, she seemed kind, if lonely.  Her oldest friend, and her truest, was the first knight of her queensguard—Ser Devan Seaworth, and it was only with him, and Edric Storm who was to be her consort that she ever seemed to smile.  

 _A crown is a lonely hat_ , she remembered someone saying—Septon Meribald, perhaps, or…or Jaime.   _It was loneliness that pardoned Myrcella—I’m sure of it._

Her father’s men had nearly revolted when she’d pardoned Myrcella.  They’d called her a Lannister Queen, and so long as she lived, the lions of the Rock would never be cowed, but Shireen had taken her cousin—not  _truly_  her cousin, but she had called her cousin—by the hand and said, simply, that Myrcella had willed no ill upon her crown, and would do no treason.  And when Myrcella had smiled and kissed her cheek right on her greyscale scars, Shireen had closed her eyes and a look of peace had crossed her face, if only for a moment.

Myrcella was willful, and bright.  And it was not long before she found Brienne.

“You saved my uncle Jaime.”  _Uncle, when all the realm names him your father.  And saved him, as if it weren’t my treachery that slew him_

_So many vows they make you swear.  You can never keep them all no matter how you try.  Least of all the ones you swear to your own heart._

“I tried to, My Lady,” Brienne said, inclining her head.  The girl looked like him, she had his smile.

“I wonder…” and she looked about, as if scared that someone might hear her, “My mother used to say that she should have worn armor and fought, but that she was never allowed. I wonder if you might teach me?”

It was not only Jaime’s smile that Myrcella shared—it was his ferocity.  She was quick to learn, and did not complain at the callouses on her hands, and men whispered that Brienne the Oathkeeper was training the kingslayer’s get, that unnatural women must flock together, for who else would be so quick to train a woman but another woman.   _I trained Ser Podrick Payne,_ Brienne wanted to shout at them.   _I trained him and he is a stronger knight than any other in the realm._

Podrick, at least, did not look askance at her morning dances with Myrcella now called Hill.  He watched them from, his eyes catching their swords while his hand rested on his own.  She had given him her own sword—the one she’d carried with her for so long and which had been the sword she’d sworn to Renly.  It gleamed in his hand when he trained with it, and when it was Podrick training, sometimes Brienne and Myrcella would pause and watch him.

“Your first squire,” Myrcella commented one day.  “He’s a valiant knight.”

“The overlooked most often are,” Brienne said even as Podrick knocked some Florent on his backside, throwing his full weight at the other knight.  He’d grown bold one day, and he said it was because of her.

 _If it was because of me, then it was also because of Renly, because of Jaime.  For Renly let me serve and Jaime taught me service._ But she could not tell that to Podrick.  She could not tell it to anyone.  For in the Queen’s court there were no men so reviled as Renly the Upstart and Jaime the Kingslayer.   _But they were neither of them that—not to me._

These girls though—she wondered what they would say to know that Brienne of Tarth served their nieces, stood guard over these young women as she had not been able to the uncles.   _They would both laugh.  But not unkindly, I think._

It was upon Ser Justin’s death that she was elevated.  

“How did you come by these scars?” Shireen asked when Brienne had knelt before her.  She had reached out a trembling hand and caressed Brienne’s cheek.  She had not asked before.  Most did not, though they all seemed to know.  Brienne was surprised that the queen had not heard the story already.

“In combat, Your Grace. A man tried to eat my face.”   _He made me even more beautiful when he did,_ she thought bitterly.  

The queen smiled at her, and in her eyes, Brienne could see she knew what it was to have a ruined face. “Will you serve me, leally and truly?” Shireen asked, her voice carrying through the hall.  She did not sound like Stannis.  Nor did she sound like Renly.  She was something altogether her own.   _It will be an honor to serve her,_ Brienne thought.   

“I will, Your Grace,” Brienne said.  

“Brienne of Tarth, Brienne the Oathkeeper, I name you a sworn knight of my queensguard, to serve me until your death, or mine,” Shireen said loudly.

“I shall serve none but you, Your Grace,” Brienne said, and Shireen reached out a hand and Ser Devan brought her a woolen cloak of white that she swept over Brienne’s shoulders.  _Jaime had a cloak like this.  He swore to keep his vows as best he could and so shall I._

“Rise, Lady Commander,” Shireen said, and she did.


	16. Rickon x Shireen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for [float-freely-forever](http://float-freely-forever.tumblr.com).

He vaults off his horse and crosses the yard in three strides, and Shireen is prepared for him to bow to her, to speak words of duty, of greeting–”My brother sends his regards, your grace, and I have much to convey to you on his behalf,”–or something of that ilk. It has happened many times before now, of course, Rickon going between Winterfell and Storm’s End, riding the length of the great continent to her side. 

But he does not say a word when he reaches her, and she sees in his eyes the sort of fire that makes her heartbeat quicken, makes her air come shallow in her throat, and it doesn’t matter if it’s improper, it doesn’t matter if he shouldn’t–he does–he kisses her, right there, before her court, before her knights and her men at arms, and she should fight him off because whatever affections they share, have shared, will share again, it is not for the light of day and not for the eyes of the world, but the minute his arms are around her again, she melts into him, this boy she’d taught to read and watched grow and her mouth opens to his and she sighs at the familiar taste of his breath.


	17. Gendry & Jon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for imjustasmith.

There’s blood bubbling on Lord Snow’s lips.  He’s coughing it up, like the way that Lommy had right after he’d been stuck through with Needle.

“Take care of her,” Lord Snow says, and Gendry doesn’t have to ask who.  “Promise me, Gendry.”

Light fades from Lord Snow’s eyes and a chill runs down Gendry’s spine.  His eyes are cool and grey and sightless, but they are more than that.  They are Arya’s eyes, and they are lifeless.

“I promise,” he says, and he reaches out a hand and closes Jon Snow’s eyes.


	18. Sansa x Sandor

Nights are always restless.  His leg pains him–badly, and his back hasn’t stopped hurting since he fell from his damn horse, or so it seems.  It’s hard to lie still for hours on end–the mattress is too hard, or too soft; sleeping on his left side makes his leg throb, while sleeping on his right means he’s got his back to Sansa and he’d rather not do that, given…given everything.

She sleeps fitfully, for the most part.  More fitfully than before, that’s for sure.  She curls up into a little ball, her knees tucked to her chest and her head curved inwards.  She’s not a small woman, but she seems small when she sleeps.  Everyone seems small when they sleep. Everyone except him.

Nights are always restless, and he does his best to sleep, but tonight, he can’t–not even a little bit.  And he doesn’t think that it’s leaving her when he climbs from the bed and creeps across the room.  He’s less silent now than he used to be.  Time was when he could make his way unheard anywhere, even a man of his size.  He’d had to learn to be silent with Gregor, and he’d never seen the point of being loud after that.  He stands by the window and looks down at the little basket resting on the sill.

He’d expected her to be big, given how large Sansa had been when she’d carried her.  Sansa’s stomach had swollen to be the size of the moon.  Or at least, so it had seemed, her pale skin stretching over their babe.  But she’s tiny, really.  Tiny and dark haired and with almost grey eyes.  Like Arya.  Like Alinore.

He can’t remember Alinore these days, just a giggle and her hand small in his.  And he’d have suggested it as a name for her, but for the fact that Alinore sounded too much like Alayne, and he did not wish to remind Sansa of that name.  

They haven’t named her yet.  Part of him’s scared to.  Like if he names her, he’ll wake up and it will all be a dream, or somehow something will happen to her.  He shudders.  Gregor is dead.  Truly dead this time.  He’ll not smash this babe’s head against a wall.

He reaches down and brushes his fingers over her cheek, and she fusses.  She’s always fussing.  Always crying as well, and he knows that she’ll be awake soon enough as is.  But there’s something hypnotic about her.  That she’s real, perhaps.  That she’ll grow.  That already she has her mother’s nose.  That her skin is so soft, like silk, like Sansa and that when she opens her eyes they’ll be not quite grey, not quite blue.

He feels warm hands slide around his waist, and Sansa pressing her lips to his spine.

“I didn’t mean to wake you,” he whispers to her, twisting, wrapping his arm around her and pulling her forward so that they can look at their together.  She looks tired, with dark circles around her eyes and even in the moonlight he can tell that her skin is more waxen than usual.  Mayhaps she should not have gotten out of bed.  She had only given birth a few days before, and it had drained her.  

She doesn’t reply though.  She looks down at their babe, their girl, and reaches a hand down as well.  The girl fidgets in her sleep, then Sansa  takes his hand and lifts it to her lips.  She kisses first his knuckles, then opens his fingers to kiss his palms.

It’s like something from a dream.  Something he once might not have dared dream, in truth, for what vile scum could deserve this?  Certainly not the Hound. 

But the Hound is dead.  He died by the Trident, Sandor reminds himself.   It took him hard work, and blood to leave the Hound there as well.  But it was worth it, if this wasn’t a dream.  

He rests his chin on the top of her head, and holds her tightly.  She’s better than a dream, his Sansa.  

His Sansa.  He likes that.  His Sansa, and their daughter.  

He likes that even better.


	19. Asha, Theon, Alannys

Asha’s almost frightened to bring him to Ten Towers.  The sea wind has whipped color into his cheeks, and there is something a little more alive in his eyes, but he is still hunched and white haired, and shuffles about on broken feet like a man fifty years his senior.

But she brings him to Ten Towers. Not Pyke–not yet.  Ten Towers first.

When he’d come back the first time, after all those years away, he’d refused to see his mother.  He’d imagined that he hadn’t had the time, thought her weak, perhaps, or silly.  But not now.  

“Will she still want me?” he asks Asha when Harlaw comes into sight off Black Wind’s prow.  Asha looks at him.  Were it anyone else, she’d have taken his hand, or rested a hand on his shoulder, but Theon does not like to be touched–not even by his family.

“She’s your mother.  She’s only thought of you since you left her side.”  

Theon swallows.

Asha helps him up the steps as best she can, and leads him down hallways that must seem like they’re part of a dream.  The last time Theon had been to Harlaw, he’d been little more than a babe, and Maron had made sport of making him cry.  She wonders if he remembers that as well.

Alannys is sitting by the window, staring out of it when Asha leads Theon into her bedchamber.

“Mother?” she asks quietly, and Alannys turns, her eyes landing first on Asha, then on Theon.

“Is this your husband? I’d heard he was old…”

“No, mother,” Asha says slowly, turning her eyes to Theon.  “It’s Theon.”

Theon straightens his shoulders and shuffles forward and Asha follows him, half a step behind.

Alannys sits up and stares at her last son, coming out of the darkness of the castle towards the sunshine of her window.

She holds out a hand, and when Theon takes it, she begins to cry.  She pulls him towards her and holds him, resting her hand on his hair, and Theon–

Theon wraps his arms around her and holds her as tightly as he can, trembling, and staring out the window, a look of fulfillment in his eyes.


	20. Rickon x Steffon

“i don’t remember my brothers.  the ones who died.”

rickon glances over.  steffon’s staring out over the moors, and the sky overhead is clear and full of stars.  steffon’s usually the one who’s joking, the one who’s laughing, the one who’s telling him he’s taking everything too seriously.  " _what’s the fun of being the baby if you have to bear the weight of the world on your shoulders?_ “ he was constantly asking rickon.  he was the one who wanted rickon to smile, he was the one who could make rickon smile because he has a way with words and an infectious grin, and rickon stared at steffon’s face and it’s in shadow.  

“your brothers?” rickon asks.  

“there were four of them,” steffon says, “and they died on the blackwater.  dale, allard, matthos, and maric.  and i can’t remember them.”  he sounds miserable.  and rickon isn’t sure what to say.  ” _i can’t remember my father.  i can only remember_ yours _.“_

it’s just the two of them, and so no one is there to see when rickon wraps his arm around steffon’s shoulder and pulls him against his chest.  there will be no secrets from the stars tonight, and tonight… rickon knows plenty about not remembering, he knows how it hurts not because you don’t miss them, but because you don’t remember what you’re missing the way everyone else does.  so he holds steffon as closely as he can, and looks up overhead and tries to remember what robb looked like.


	21. Arya

_that’s all i wanted.  to get back to you._

she sits in the dark.  there are candles, and torches she could light, but she sits in the dark, on freshly turned earth.  she can’t see anything, not even the archways, not the statues of the kings of winter and their wolves at their side.

 _i just wanted to get back to you._ every time the words fill her mind, her throat hurts her more.   _direwolves don’t cry._ but she’s not a direwolf.  none of them are.

she’s a stark and she is in winterfell, down in the crypts where they’d buried her father, and her aunt lyanna, and…and…

it wasn’t supposed to be like this.  it wasn’t.  he was supposed to hold her, and call her little sister, and rub her hair.  they were supposed to have years together, years that war and fate had stolen from them, years of laughter, and being in winterfell with bran, and sansa, and rickon.

 _well, we are,_ she thinks sadly, rubbing her fingers through the dirt underneath her.  

it is not yet packed down.  there is no statue of him, no pale stone ghost.  there’s just arya sitting sentinel in the darkness until she can bring herself to stand again.


	22. Bran x Meera

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for tommy-10-k

it doesn’t get old.  it can’t get old.  not after everything.

it had been a quiet confession, a quiet declaration, a _you–i have loved you since i was a boy._  it had been a quiet moment, her green eyes startled, then her hands cupping his face and pulling his lips to hers.  it was better than a dream.  bran knows too much of dreams to think that dreams are good.  it was better than a song, even the songs that sansa had so adored when they’d been children.

it doesn’t get old, the sight of her hovering above him, the taste of her core on his tongue as she straddles him, hands tight on the headboard of his bed.  she tastes as only meera _could_  taste, and when his eyes are open, he sees the soft flesh of her breasts, the puckered points, the flush in her cheeks as she breathes deeply.

it doesn’t get old the taste of her, the sight of her, and it will never get old, the way she pants his name when the world is too much.


	23. Rickon x Steffon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for placetneplacet

It’s late.  Rickon can tell it’s late because it is actually dark outside.  In high summer, only the latest hours are the darkest ones.  Windows must be shuttered against the everlasting twilight in Winterfell if one truly wishes it to be dark when going to sleep.

Rickon doesn’t like the dark but it has its uses.  He knows well that no one is awake right now.  There’s no one to see them, or hear them and gazes what happens in subtle gestures by day loses all subtlety in the dead of night.

Rickon and Steffon are the same height.  Rickon is broader of shoulder, Steffon is narrower of hip, but in the darkness, none of that matters.  In the darkness, what matters is Steffon pressed against his chest, his lips sucking at Rickon’s throat, his scruff rough against Rickon’s skin, his hands running along Rickon’s side as Rickon holds his arse tightly in his hands, pulling their groins together. Nothing matters in the dark except the heat of Steffon against his front and the warmth of the walls of Winterfell at his back and the way his own heart beats louder and faster than even it does when he is training the yard or running with the wolves.  The only thing that matters in the dark is him and Steffon, for they are the only ones awake and oh, how awake they are.


	24. Hot Pie

Terrence leads a careful life.  That’s what war taught him.  Careful and keep your head down and you may live through it…if you don’t come across the bad ones, who’ll kill you for not doing as they wish.  He’d stayed alive, somehow.  Lommy hadn’t, and gods only knew what had become of the weasel-faced girl that had followed them about.  He’d heard people talk of Robert Baratheon’s Bullhelmed Bastard, but Gendry had always been big in the right way, the way that made someone strong.  Terrence had only ever been big in the way that wasn’t useful in war.

It was, however, useful for baking.  A fat baker is a good sign, Goodwife Helicent had told him.  A sign he’ll eat his own food.  And Terrence does eat his own food.  He’s always been good at baking—breads and hot pies.  

Spring comes and flowers bloom and Terrence does his best to do way with memories of blood and war and fear.  When he remembers, he kneads his dough and makes biscuits in the shapes of direwolves, because everyone knows of House Stark’s heroism, and when he does he remembers a little girl shrieking “go to hell” alongside his cries of “hot pie!”  He wonders if she remembers him.  She’d remember him as Hot Pie, not Terrence.  Hot Pie’s the name of a Flea Bottom boy who never understood why the world was hard.  Terrence was the name of a man with a few ideas.

Flour was expensive.  Grains were expensive.  Meat was expensive.  Fruit was expensive.  Everything was expensive.  Farmers farmed as fast as the earth would let them farm, but that wasn’t enough to undo the damage of winter—sunken eyes and hollow cheeks and hunger everywhere.  Terrence gave his stale bread out to those who couldn’t buy it fresh.  It was the least he could do, and it felt like the right thing besides.  What else was going to come of it anyhow?  He married a woman named Alyce, who helped with the laundry in the inn.  She was sharper than he was, and skinnier, but she liked him well enough and seemed content to be his wife which was as much as Terrence had ever hoped for.  He wasn’t Gendry, wasn’t a warrior.  He was a baker, and a baker leads a simple life, with a simple wife and hopefully, when everyone’s bellies were a little fuller, simple children who’d learn to bake wolf-shaped biscuits with their father.

A simple life was all he wanted, but one day he hears a whole host of horses ride up and he survived the winter, he knows what a whole host of horses can mean.  Alyce looks at him nervously from the yard and he beckons her into the kitchen as he brushes his hands onto his apron and goes out into the main room and then out into the yard.  He sees banners—grey and white—and soldiers who look well-fed, and a great wolf the size of a horse, a young woman standing at its side and dressed in fine velvets and furs.  

And when she turns, her face breaks out into the sort of grin he’d never seen on her face when they’d been younger.  “Hot Pie!” she says, striding towards him.

“M’lady,” he says, bowing stiffly, but Arya Stark waves the courtesy away, looking about.  

“It’s yours now?” she asks.

“Aye.  So long as I can hold it,” he says.  No one knows whose it really is.  No one can remember, and Terrence is as likely a holder as anyone else is.  

“Are you still baking?” she asks him, and he’s surprised.  She seems actually interested.  Arya the Night Wolf is truly interested in whether Terrence is still baking hot pies or not.  

“Yes m’lady,” he says.  “I am.  When I can find the flour.”

Her eyes sparkle for a moment, and she turns, waving at one of her men.

“Well, you have the flour, so long as you tell us where to put it so that it won’t spoil.”

One of the horses moves, and Terrence sees it—a whole wagon filled with great sacks of flour.  No.  Not a wagon.  Four wagons.  He gapes.

“My lady,” is all he can manage, and Arya Stark of Winterfell loops her arm through his.  

“It seems the littlest thing I can do to thank you for helping me stay alive, I should think.  If there’s ever more that I can do, know that I will, Hot Pie.”

“Terrence,” he hears himself saying, and she cocks her head, curiously.  “Terrence,” he mumbles again.  “My name’s Terrence.  Always was, but I don’t…no one calls me Hot Pie anymore.”

Arya’s smile softens.  “No one calls me Arry anymore,” she says.  “Well, Terrence—where can we store your flour for you?”


	25. Sansa x Podrick

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for jeynegrey

it is a whispered confession in the dark.   _“my lady, i find myself in love with you.”_   no stumbling words, no nervousness.  bran says the dark can make men brave, and sansa has always wondered at the veracity of those words.  but they are definitely true of podrick.  he is brave when it is just the two of them and only the light of moon and stars.

his lips are soft against hers the first time he kisses her.  gentle, and undemanding and just what a kiss should be.  his hand where the back of her head meets her neck is reassuring, and the way his finger tips feel against her scalp makes her lose her breath.  by day, or by candlelight, she’d never have known that he loved her, that he would kiss her.  it makes it secretive somehow, as though no one in the world knows what is between them save the two of them.  sansa finds she likes it, likes having a harmless secret, likes having someone to share it with.

perhaps the darkness makes her brave too.  it is her hands that find the laces of his breeches, the soft skin beneath.  it is her touch that makes him groan and rest his head against her shoulder, his heart racing and his breath come in short.  he comes apart in the dark–she does not see it to know it is the truth of it.  it is just the two of them in the dark and that means that the rest of the world doesn’t matter, can’t matter, did it ever matter?


	26. Arya

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for insomniarama

there’s no bird from the citadel to tell them summer has come at last,  only the low rumbling of distant thunder.  

she is riding on nymeria’s back when she hears it, when she turns her head to look behind her over the moors and sees it–a string of thunderheads so tall it looks like they are trying to block out the sky and arya lets out a woop.  summer, summer, sweet summer child.  summer at last, summer again.  she lets out a howl, and nymeria does too though she is quite sure the wolf does not understand why the girl is the one singing today.

summer again, summer like her girlhood–spent running about and playing and not fearing the dark or the winter or the loss that was to come.  there’d been days, weeks, months when she’d thought she’d never know summer again, but here it is now, for thunderheads only appear in summer in the north.  

she leans forward and kisses the wolf’s head.  the victory is old, but there are little things that you hadn’t thought of that remind you of how much you had to fight, and for arya it’s the sound of thunder and childhood again.


	27. Arya

“he is too young.”

“he is the same age i was when father brought me, the day we found the wolves.”

“and i was too young the first time i saw a man die.  so were you.  so were we all.”

“our way is the old way.  robb must know that.  he must understand.  just as you and i both do.”

she does not respond, but looks at her brother evenly.  he’s seated in his chair, a wolfskin over his legs and his hands folded on his lap.  his blue eyes are steady as he watches her.  “i do not want it,” he says quietly.  “you understand.  but of all people you should understand the difference between what we want and what must be.  winter is coming.”

“winter has come and gone,” she snapped, “and there will never  _be_  another winter like that.  it’s  _spring_  out there now, bran.”

“and when winter comes it will be the sort of winter robb will know for the rest of his life.  he must be ready.  he must know the old way.  just as i had to, just as you had to.”

arya takes another deep breath.  “he is too young.  he can learn it later,” but bran keeps shaking his head.

“are you going to make me command you?” he has a smile on his lips, as though he finds it funny and not funny all at once.  he hates commanding her, commanding any of them.   _a king shouldn’t have to command,_ she remembered him saying.   _he should guide so that there’s no need for it.  elsewise he’s only seeing the problems as they appear, not as they develop._

arya turns on her heel and leaves the room.  she goes to the throne room and takes oathkeeper from the wall–its pommel redesigned with a wolf’s head now, with eyes of silver.  then she goes out to the practice yard.

robb is a small thing, with thick dark hair like his mother.  he’s fierce as well.   _i’m a direbear!_ he’d told little martyn ferry one morning, until he’d seen arya watching him and corrected himself.   _a direwolf first, but a bear’s just as fierce and hard to kill._

“robb,” she calls to him.  and martyn ferry lands a blow on his arm with a wooden practice sword, and robb lets out a yell and slashes at him wildly.   _not a waterdancer at all_ , arya thinks, but he doesn’t have to be.  the heir of winterfell doesn’t need to be a waterdancer the way a little lost girl does.  “robb,” she calls again and he drops his blade and trots over to her, knowing that the master at arms won’t berate him if he’s following one of princess arya’s commands.

“come with me,” she tells him and turns and continues to the stables.

* * *

the man she’s to behead is a kinslayer, convicted in bran’s court of killing his brother and kidnapping his son, claiming the boy for his own.  and when he looks at arya with her valyrian steel sword, his eyes are uncaring.

“do you have any final words?” she asks him quietly.  there is a gentle breeze and out of the corner of her eyes she sees a stark banner fluttering.  robb is standing there, looking very serious, his blue eyes wide.  

“no,” the man says.

“then in the name of king brandon of house stark, nineteenth of his name, i, arya of house stark on this day condemn you to die.” she nods to pate and tom who drop the man down so that his head is resting on the bloodstained stump and with one even stroke, arya takes his head off.  the smell of blood fills her nose, and she looks away from the man’s severed neck.  she hates beheading.  she’d rather stick a knife in someone’s heart and have done with it.  it was merciful, and didn’t remind her of her father, and joffrey, and everything that had hurt her after that.  

she crosses the clearing, leaving tom and pate to dispose of the head and corpse of the murderer and she stands over her nephew, resting a hand on his shoulder.

“there you have it,” she says gently.  “you know why i had to do it?”

robb shuffles and looks up at her.  his face is pale and frightened, and he has her mother’s eyes.  “because father commanded you to?” he asks.

arya shakes her head.  “if your father could walk, he’d do it himself,” she says.  “our way is the old way.  we do our own justice in the north.  my father–” she swallows.  “he was slain by a king’s headsman.  they do that in the south.  not us.  not ever us.  he always said that if you would take a man’s life you must look him in the eye and hear his final words.  if you can’t do that, perhaps he doesn’t deserve to die.”

robb nods, and arya ruffles his hair the way jon used to ruffle hers.  “you’re brave,” she tells him.  “of course you are.  you’re a stark.”

“but i’m frightened,” robb confesses nervously.  

“of course you are,” she says.  “of course you’re frightened.  you can’t be brave without being frightened.  otherwise you’re just stupid–and you’re not stupid.”

robb nods fervently.  

“aunt arya?”

“yes?”

“how old were you when you first–when you first had to kill someone?” 

 _only just older than you_.  she hates the thought, but hates to lie more.   _he’ll never have to–we’re strong.  the pack survives and he’s still a pup._ she sighs.

“not much older than you,” she says vaguely.  “but my father was dead and i was all on my own.  your father’s alive and you’ll not be alone.  you’ll always have me.”

and she bends and kisses his forhead.  the men have begun heading back to the castle and robb glances after them and, seeing that they’ve all got their backs to them, throws his arm around arya’s middle.  she hugs him tightly and walks him back to his pony and does her best to ignore the way the stump is still dripping blood.


	28. Sansa x Edric

he kisses her hand when she extends it.  he kisses her hand and bows, and she thanks him for his service and offers him shelter in winterfell so long as he should wish it before returning south to starfall.  he kisses her hand, and tells her that he will gladly take her hospitality until such a time as his men are ready to ride again, until the snows have melted enough that the journey south will be easy, until he is quite sure–quite, quite sure that the castle is recovered.

he kisses her on the cheek when they are alone in the godswood–just the two of them and gods that have died.  can it still be a godswood when there are no gods?  were they ever gods?  she’s prayed in empty godswoods before, has felt empty in empty godswoods before, but if there are no gods here, not anymore, but there is ned, is it not still some sort of holy devotion when he kisses her cheek, and holds her hand in his, and says that he dreads parting from her.

he kisses her on the neck one night–late, with the stars overhead and the wind whistling across the snowy plains.  he kisses her neck and she kisses his, holding him close–for warmth, for love, for hope, she does not know.  no songs ever spoke of kissing a man thusly, of feeling him pressed against her and feeling alive and full of fire when they’d survived a winter where ice could put death in your veins.  could singers write a song about her heart thumping erratically in her chest as he held her hips, harmonize to the sound of swallowed moans as she feels his manhood bulge against her lower belly?  it’s a sweeter song than any that had been offered her just yet, and she finds she likes it.

he kisses her on her sex in the bed that had once belonged to her mother.  her bodice is unlaced and her breasts are bared to the ceiling, and ned had kissed them so tenderly as he’d made his way down her torso.  his lips against that tender flesh are soft, and warm, and her breath trembles as he draws a little bud of nerves between his lips and rolls it.  her fingers twine in his hair as he licks his way along her and when she opens her eyes and looks up she is quite sure she could memorize the pattern of the stones overhead as her hips begin to rock against his mouth, as his fingers run along the inside of her thighs, as she starts to feel as though she’s been running for hours even if she’s not moving at all, and wishes never to stop–not ever to stop….

**Author's Note:**

> I have written some Post Canon drabbles that exist in my [November Drabble Series](http://archiveofourown.org/series/860076). Since I'm not going to post them twice, here is a directory if you're interested.
> 
>   * 2015 Drabbles 
>     * [Rickon](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5122979/chapters/12130091)
> 



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